Transcript:

Today on Animal Fact Files we’re discussing ants. Ants are related to wasps. This is easily observed by looking at their waist. Both ants and wasps have a cinched, tiny waist, however ants specifically have one or two noticeable bumps on their waist that helps separate them from wasps. Some wasps look like ants, such as the red velvet ant (which is actually a wasp). There are also some spiders who mimic ants, such as some jumping spider species! Like wasps, ants can sting. In fact, the name “ant” has its origins in old Germanic and means something like, “the one who bites off.” Not only can ants sting, they can bite! Of course, not all ants cause pain to humans. Many species are extremely beneficial to have around.

There are well over 10,000 described ant species and likely more than double that alive today. That's a huge diversity of arthropods that live just about everywhere on Earth! They're only absent from polar regions, the highest mountain peaks, and non-terrestrial places. What's more, ants help contribute to the environment around them. Many act as pest control, eating the larvae of insects humans otherwise label as pests. Plus, they help with decomposition by breaking down the bodies of other animals. Ants also disperse seeds by carrying them back to their nest. Plus, they aerate the soil as they dig through it, making it easier for water to penetrate. Yes, some species are destructive, such as carpenter ants, but it's important to remember there are tens of thousands of ant species, and they aren't all bad!

Apart from their thin waist, ants are identifiable by their elbow-like antennae. The first segment is long and the rest of the segments bend off the first giving them a distinct joint. In size, ants range from a miniscule 1 millimeter in length to more than twenty times that! The longest ants can reach more than an inch (2.5 cm) long, and the longest individual ants are the queens.

Ants are social insects and their colonies are divided into castes of workers, swarmers, and royalty. The workers are the ants with which most of us are most familiar. They feed and defend the colony. Swarmers are winged individuals that leave the group to start a new colony elsewhere. The royalty are the egg producers who act as the mother of the entire colony! When swarmers leave the nest they fly away to find a mate. They mate and land to establish a new colony. The male of the pair typically dies quickly after mating, but the female lives on to become the new colony's queen. Queen ants are the longest lived and some have been known to reach decades old!

Not only do ants often benefit the environment in which they live, they also provide food to many predators throughout their range. Other insects and arthropods, birds and small reptiles, mammals from rodents to giant anteaters, and even other ant species all gain nutrients by eating ants. What's more, some bird species participate in a behavior known as anting in which the birds purposefully disturb an ant nest in order to have the ants crawl through their feathers and release chemicals that act as a pesticide for the birds. It's a means of ridding themselves of parasites!

There's so much more to learn about this diverse group of animals. We recommend checking out some of the specified videos about ants here on AFF to learn even more! Be sure to give a thumbs up if you learned something new today. Thank you to our Patrons SpikeSpiegel93, Dad, and everyone else for their support of this channel! And thank you for watching Animal Fact Files!